


Retrograde

by en passant (corinthian)



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-29
Updated: 2014-11-29
Packaged: 2018-02-27 11:13:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2690774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corinthian/pseuds/en%20passant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mokuba has seen his brother fall apart in a myriad of ways. When he was younger he didn’t recognize the cracks, the way that Seto’s face would split and fall open and reveal a new facade that was even more flawed than the first. Even, or especially, during the height of Seto’s madness when everything had been frantic death chants.</p>
<p>But it’s only when Mokuba is sixteen that he recognizes the signs.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>Seto slowly falls apart over the years and Mokuba does what he can to refocus his brother -- even if it means making some Bad Decisions. Or, why is there such an undercurrent of dystopia in some of the YGO spin-offs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Retrograde

Mokuba has seen his brother fall apart in a myriad of ways. When he was younger he didn’t recognize the cracks, the way that Seto’s face would split and fall open and reveal a new facade that was even more flawed than the first. Even, or especially, during the height of Seto’s madness when everything had been frantic death chants.

But it’s only when Mokuba is sixteen that he recognizes the signs. They celebrate his birthday quietly, because Mokuba’s school friends are loud and they annoy Seto and Mokuba always spends his birthday with his brother. Seto takes the whole day off of work and they do things that they used to. They read, they cook — sort of, Mokuba can’t follow a recipe to save his life and Seto follows it too much to the letter — they play chess and take a long drive to the middle of nowhere, just the two of them.

Seto offers him wine with dry amusement that makes Mokuba laugh and accept. Even then, Seto pours him a small glass, a child’s serving, but that’s fine. They drink and Mokuba watches Seto look out across the cityscape of Domino. There’s a wistfulness on Seto’s face that sends a shiver down Mokuba’s spine. The shiver turns into a full-blown shudder when Seto says, “Happy sixteenth birthday, Mokuba. May you have many more.” He has the same expression on he wore when he challenged Gozaburo to that chess game.

When Mokuba was six his brother had said, happy sixth birthday, Mokuba, I hope we can always celebrate together. It had made him so happy, just as this birthday wish makes him upset. But instead he grins, laughs, drains his glass and asks for another. He makes sure that he wears that face of hope, to remind Seto of how young he is. Because at sixteen Seto was already a CEO, because at ten Seto had been acting as his father, because at eight it had been Seto who had looked after Mokuba when their father refused to.

Seto declines to give him more wine, of course, says that Mokuba still has a lot of growing up to do. It reassures him.

It’s only another two years before the shuddering quiet wrenches through Mokuba again.

On his eighteenth birthday they travel to Ireland, Mokuba wants to see Giant’s Causeway so that’s where they go. The water is still cold, even though it’s July. Seto abandons his heavy coats and dress pants for something far simpler and Mokuba thinks it almost looks comical. His brother in jeans and a t-shirt — but it’s a shirt that Mokuba bought him last year as a gag gift, because it says _BOSS_ across the back in silver letters and the black fabric has houndstooth pattern in the shape of dragons. Privately he thinks his brother loves the shirt, finds it funny too, but he’s never seen him wear it before now.

Maybe, he just loves it because Mokuba gave it to him.

“You’re almost all grown up.” Seto says, smiles. It’s the kind of smile that Mokuba hasn’t seen since Seto was a kid, since Mokuba was too young to know that someday those smiles were going to stop. Time slows down and the crashing of the waves on the rocks matches the throbbing of Mokuba’s heart. It’s all wrong. Seto looks happy but Mokuba feels like he’s watching a funeral. He can’t help but drop his eyes to the ground, to trace up Seto’s — casual shoes, boots — the jeans, the obscenely large belt buckle and hilarious shirt, lingers on the odd long scars on Seto’s arms that he doesn’t know where they came from — not really, and Seto will never tell him — and finally to his brother’s face.

Wistful. Resigned.

For some reason, Mokuba blinks back tears and he laughs. “Not yet, nii-sama, not yet. I’ll never be as old as you.”

He almost misses the way Seto’s smile breaks, right down the middle. The tightness in Seto’s jaw, even if his expression doesn’t change.

When he’s twenty-one they have a fight over Kaiba Corp. Mokuba wants to take it over, to really fulfill his position as the Vice President. He wants, really, to untangle Seto’s fingers from it so that his brother does something other than twelve hour days, seven days a week.

Seto refuses. Seto threatens to cut Mokuba out of the corporation’s hierarchy. He says that it’s final and that Mokuba should go to graduate school if he wants. Or maybe he should travel. Seto even cracks a small joke, asking if he should set aside funds for a wedding.

Mokuba dated a few girls in college, and one boy, and each and every single one had hated his brother. So the relationships hadn’t lasted very long. One girl had said that Seto has handicapping Mokuba, keeping him the little sibling to fulfill some kind of obscene dependency. She had been a psychology major. What she didn’t know was that it was Mokuba who kept it alive, that every time Seto had said, simply, it’s all right if you want to go elsewhere for the holidays, or implied Mokuba didn’t have to come home, Mokuba would take more time off to see his brother.

When he was away he was filled with dread.

A week after their fight Seto tells Mokuba that he started to work out a way to disassemble Kaiba Corp. He doesn’t have any intention to leave Mokuba tied to a company like that. It’s a rare confession, a rare look into how much Seto hates Kaiba Corp, sometimes. Mokuba slams both his hands down on the desk between them.

“You can’t.”

“Mokuba, my decision on this matter is final.”

“I won’t let you.”

“You’re not CEO,” Seto’s voice is exasperated, but affectionately amused. It’s the same tone that Mokuba keeps hearing over and over. The resigned nature of it bites into him. He knows Seto only shows him that face, no one else gets to see it, but it’s more terrifying than any of Seto’s rages. “This is the better outcome for the company. The roots are too deep to change everything.”

Even though Seto has tried. Mokuba knows his brother isn’t a quitter. Seto’s tried everything and he succeeded for the longest time. Kaiba Corp isn’t a weapons machine anymore, it’s well-known for entertainment and soon there won’t be many who remember it as the war mongerers’ first choice. Seto has done his best to clean up the black connections too, quietly and thoroughly weeding out employees who had connections to Gozaburo’s old blood money, removing the industry standard of the black market. It’s why Seto works such long hours, because he’s always, always, digging into Kaiba Corp’s dark history to cleanse it.

Mokuba thinks that Seto has only stopped because Mokuba is old enough to inherit. He wonders if his brother set himself a timeline — giving himself until Mokuba was done with school, done with college, a legal adult, mature enough — before he called it futile. Or, before he didn’t see a reason to continue, anymore.

Years ago, Seto showed Mokuba the separate accounts and resources he had set aside for _Mokuba_. It wasn’t an ‘us’ or ‘together’, but specifically an account and real estate, hidden patents and stocks, for Mokuba alone.

His brother always had a contingency plan.

“You can’t give up.” Mokuba is resolute. He tries to challenge his brother, phrase it like something that would motivate him. He can’t recall — it’s been too long — what Yuugi would have said. It also doesn’t matter, Seto hasn’t touched a Duel Monsters card since Battle City. Seto hasn’t touched any game, since then, outside of chess with Mokuba on his birthday and that is a private favor.

“I’m not giving up, but all corporations evolve. It’s also a way to avoid hitting monopolizing boundaries.”

“Please don’t do this.” He changes tactics to begging, eyes wide. Seto has always been weak to his begging. “I need Kaiba Corp too.” He lies.

For Mokuba’s twenty-fifth birthday Seto makes his position as Vice President a reality. He finally relents and divides up business — but he only lets Mokuba handle the front end. Seto continues to root through the history of Kaiba Corp with brutal efficiency. Mokuba only works eight hour days, because Seto made him sign the contract that promised to no overtime.

He enjoys the work more than he thought he would. He always saw Seto working and the hard angle of his jaw and the unhappiness in his posture, but Mokuba really enjoys it. He has a mind for business and numbers and while innovation isn’t his strong point Seto thrives with more time. Kaiba Corp puts out invention after invention and Mokuba even catches Seto smirk over a design for a new, better, more mobile Duel Disk.

It’s only after Mokuba enters a serious relationship, with a young man who is energetic and supportive, who doesn’t even mind Seto’s glaring, that Seto allows Mokuba into the back doors of Kaiba Corp.

When Mokuba is twenty-eight he gets married, it’s a small private civil service that is nothing more than signing the certificate but he doesn’t mind. Neither does his husband. Seto attends, stands in the back, though. Mokuba makes sure to grab him by the hands, both of them, squeeze and whisper fiercely, _I still need you._

Seto is thirty-five when he has his first serious break — since Yuugi — with reality. Mokuba doesn’t know, at first, because they don’t live together anymore. But he gets a phonecall at two am from the housekeeper and she’s terrified.

She tells him that Seto just lost four hours and in an uncharacteristic panic had demanded she tell him what he had done. But he hadn’t done anything but sit at his desk and stare at nothing. Then he had fired her. Then he had forgotten he had fired her. It had only lasted an hour, his tirade and back and forth with her, but it was enough that she had called Mokuba.

“I’m just tired.” Seto says when Mokuba drives over, at five in the morning. “It’s fine, Mokuba.”

There’s a quiet shuttering to Seto’s expression though, like someone has drawn the curtains behind his eyes. It’s like they’re both living at the mansion again, and Gozaburo is just upstairs and Seto has hidden away all of his smiles.

Later that day Mokuba digs into his hidden server at Kaiba Corp. He pulls up the plans for Death T, that were saved after Seto fell into a coma because Mokuba — then, so young and hopeful — hadn’t really understood what it had meant for Seto and wondered if his brother would want them, when he woke up. He also hacked into the oldest database to retrieve Seto’s oldest designs for weapons.

Mokuba spends a week reading over the material. He drops by the mansion every two days — apologizes to his husband for being late on those days, but it’s an understanding they have because even his husband has seen the resignation in Seto’s face — just to see his brother.

Seto is irritated, always, says he doesn’t need looking after. Mokuba always leaves with _I’ll see you again, soon, I promise._ He thinks sometimes it’s cruel, because there’s no way that Seto will let Mokuba’s promise go unfulfilled. Every time he says it he can see the wince run through Seto’s body.

Neither of them really notice when the world starts turning in on itself. It’s just another facet of business.

Two years later, Seto is thirty-seven and Mokuba is thirty-two, he stops by the mansion no more than once every two weeks and this time no one comes to the door to greet him. Seto must have fired the housekeeper again, for good this time. Mokuba finds his brother in his childhood room — a room he left preserved down to the detail of the scuffs on the floor from the chair at the desk being shoved back roughly, the three blood drops by the closet door, the ugly wallpaper.

Seto is bent over the desk, furiously writing.

“You can’t be here, Mokuba.” He snaps. His expression is old, Mokuba hasn’t seen it in years, but as soon as Seto lays eyes on him it disappears. He narrows his eyes, like he can’t figure out why Mokuba is so old and then with a soft sigh all the emotions on his face are gone. “Mokuba.”

“Seto, did you fire the housekeeper?”

“She was in the way.”

Mokuba wants to invite his brother to stay with him, but he knows Seto will never agree. Seto will never agree to another housekeeper, but without one he won’t eat regularly. The signs of Seto’s erratic habits are written all over him. Mokuba wonders when the housekeeper was let go.

He makes a decision then.

“I have an idea for a new project.”

That gets Seto’s attention. The sharpness comes back to his face, eagerness. Mokuba knows his brother is in project-mode. The kind of mood that allows Seto to work for three days straight with no break and come up with something brilliant. It’s also the least moral of his brother’s moods, when Seto has nothing on his mind but creation.

Gozaburo honed this mood well and Mokuba feels like he’s betraying his brother.

“Let’s go to the office, then.” Seto stands abruptly, strides for the door. He looks every inch the CEO that Mokuba loves. He twines his fingers with his brother’s, reassuring.

“I won’t be able to do it without you,” Mokuba says.

Later, Mokuba is CEO in everything but name. With time Seto slowly loosened his grip and bit by bit Mokuba has sent him on project after project. The inventor in his brother can’t back down from the challenge, from the thrill he gets from creating things. They both pretend that the projects are as benign as ever, but Mokuba catches the light frown on Seto’s face over the latest project. He smiles, brightly, says _Don’t worry, we’ll put safeties in place._ Seto nods, because earlier that day again Mokuba caught his hand and said, _I need you_ and that’s always been enough for him.


End file.
